


Off Call

by templemarker



Category: Southland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia turned off her car and sat in the driveway for a minute, just breathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off Call

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spuffyduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/gifts).



Lydia turned off her car and sat in the driveway for a minute, just breathing.

There were hard days and harder days on this job, and nothing really in between. She loved it, in that way you love something important that's bigger than yourself. She loved it despite how it made her lesser and greater at the same time.

She willfully relaxed her fingers on the wheel, letting her hands fall to her thighs. She took a few deep breaths, something the health officers who made the precinct rounds once or twice a month had instructed them on how to do. Lydia had been surprised by how much it helped, just the act of pausing to let the breath sink in.

The job would eat you whole if you let it, and the only way to get through it was to let it come first. You could love your family more than anything in the world, and the job still came first. Lydia thought being a doctor was probably like this too, working to serve something, knowing that your work could be the difference between someone living or dying.

It was an awful thing, sometimes. But there wasn't anything greater.

Blowing out one last breath, she opened the car door and stepped out. The night air was almost cool, a breeze teasing her wrists and the open neck of her shirt. The porch light was on, but the house was silent, and Lydia raised her eyes heavenward thinking of what trouble her mother was getting into tonight.

It was a relief, though, to know she wouldn't have to talk about her day, that she had tomorrow off and could just drink a glass of wine or two and watch some movie on the television. The front door swung open with a quiet click, and Lydia's hand automatically reached for her service weapon before moving any further, dropping her bags to the floor and kicking the door shut with her foot. Her gun safe was hidden in a decorative box she had fastened to the table in the entryway. It looked sealed from the outside, and you had to know the trick of it to get it open. She pressed the buttons, entered the code to the safe, and went through the process of checking the safety, checking the chamber, and checking the clip before placing the gun in the compartment with her badge.

She had her own revolver in another safe upstairs in her bedroom. It had only ever been fired at the range, and she hoped it would stay that way. Her shotgun was in another safe in the closet off the hallway. It was preparation that had saved Janila, had saved herself when those assholes came to her home for a showdown. It was preparation that let her sleep at night--most nights, anyway.

She shrugged out of her jacket, unbuckled her belt, stepped out of her shoes. She kicked everything under the entryway table, something her mother would have scolded her for any other night. But her mother wasn't here, and Lydia could pick it up tomorrow.

The box of wine in the kitchen wasn't completely terrible, and more importantly, it didn't go bad like most of the bottles she bought sitting half-full on the counter for weeks. She let herself, but she didn't let herself drink much, and that was damn important to her. She'd seen all the people who let the drink, or the drugs, or the stupid fucking life choices lead them around and tank their careers. She was never going to be one of those people. She'd worked too damn hard for that.

The wine still did the trick going down, though. She stood in the kitchen, belt hanging off her waist, shirt untucked, hair in bad need of getting to the salon, and a slow smile spread across her face.

Goddamn, she loved herself.

She barked out a laugh, and then another. It was probably awful to think that, self-centered as hell and an obnoxious thought, but it was true. She had worked, and she had worked _hard_ , and even when it was shitty, what she did with this job was worth waking up in the morning.

Still smiling, she sauntered over the stereo on the kitchen counter and clicked it on, choosing some Babyface that she still loved no matter how many years ago it came out. Humming and threading out her belt, she slid across the kitchen floor in her socked feet and sang along with "Tender Lover," turning up the volume with the remote and raising her wine glass up so it wouldn't spill.

Dancing with herself in the kitchen felt like the most self-indulgent thing she'd done in a long time, more than buying herself that $400 dress last December, even more than sleeping with Rodrigo. Hell, she wasn't even sure that last one _was_ self-indulgence--sleeping with Rodrigo made her unwind better than the gym, better than reading a book or going out with any of the girlfriends she'd managed to hang on to after college. Lydia didn't even mind the guilt trip that came with him--they didn't have to be anything more serious than what they were.

She was still smiling when the song ended and switched to the mellower "When Can I See You Again." For a second, she thought about calling Rodrigo, setting something up, but no. No, she wanted to have herself to herself tonight, no booty calls with troublesome men, no mother asking her when she was going to do something other than work.

She pulled a frozen pizza out of the freezer and set the timer on her oven, topped up her wine glass, turned up the music and headed up the stairs. Having the evening to herself, and not being so damn exhausted that she couldn't enjoy it, felt like a rare gift. Humming to herself, she danced down the hallway, and let the job fall away, leaving behind only herself.


End file.
